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Forum:How time travel works or will work
So we know, or at least believe we know, that at some point, Agatha will gain the ability to . I believe, however, that Lucrezia has already used a similar method, because we know, or, at any rate, were , that Lucrezia had visited the Geisterdamen repeatedly throughout their history, without her physical appearance ever changing, and that she had knowledge of the their future. It seems likely to me, therefore, that when visiting the Geister world, Lucrezia could choose when in time she would arrive, which would give her the knowledge to make accurate prophecies, at least up until she visited the present. Now what if the same or a similar process is possible in reverse? Remember that in the DuPree witnessed, Gilgamesh was wearing Geistergear, and there was a Geisterdame present; also, the background behind Agatha and the others appears strange-looking. Is it not possible that Agatha, Gil, and Moloch had traveled, or will travel, to the Geisterverse, and they are trying to determine the right moment to reenter the Europaverse? Perhaps being able to choose when to enter the alternate timeline is an inherent feature of travel between the two. Which raises another question. Consider that, at some point, Lucrezia visited, or will visit, the Geisterverse in clank body, to judge from the look of her hand and arm in Vrin's flashback; some have speculated that the , witnessed by Agatha in Beetleburg, was also of Lucrezia in a clank body. Furthermore, consider that Lucrezia her mind into a clank body, that we know of, only after those events, and that she can replace certain parts of the body to modify its appearance and functionality. What if Lucrezia, who, in her clank body, is still at large after the events in Sturmhalten, has not yet, from her perspective, appeared to Agatha in Beetleburg or exiled the Geisterdamen? RichardAK 05:54, 5 September 2008 (UTC)RichardAK : I'm not sure Lucrezia can manipulate time. Just because history says she visited in the same aspect over time doesn't mean that she was actually in the same aspect—history of god–like event in the past isn't always accurate. It's also possible that only the last visit was Lucrezia, the previous could have been someone/something else. (There's also the theory that Lucrezia was taken over by some other entity, which obviously be related.) Knowing the future is a common claim, and to be successful you need to 1) guess right, 2) be vague in your predictions, or 3) cause the events you foretell. : Actually, to nit-pick: doesn't say the Eternal Lady didn't change over all time, only that she didn't change during the series of visits made when Vrin was a novice. Argadi 11:09, 5 September 2008 (UTC) ::There (a) a series of visits by the Eternal Lady in Vrin's novitiate, with prophecy; (b) a visit by some one in great distress; © an attack that destroyed the temple; and (d) a visit in which the Geisterdamen were sent to Earth. While we don't know who (a) was, it seems highly likely that (b) was a pregnant Lucrezia, fleeing the destruction of Castle Heterodyne. It is also highly likely that (d) was some version of the Lucrezia/Other entity that Agatha later fought in Strumhalten. That Lucrezia/Other seemed to be aware of sending the Geisterdamen to Earth to retrieve the child. ::Now comes the speculation: Suppose that Lucrezia had Agatha in the Geisterworld following (b). What if © was Barry and/or Bill coming to retrieve Agatha and destroying the temple in the process? --DryBrook 21:15, 27 January 2009 (UTC) :OK, everybody, feel free to flame me in retaliation for any headaches this may cause; ::The time machine violates causality in real time - that is, interactions with the past are consistent from time period to time period; When Gil called Bang a maniac, it was because she had just tried to shoot them through (to him) the previous "window". And part of the reason Bang was willing to shoot them was because she had heard him call her a maniac. Yikes. That means that the ENTIRE SERIES is in fact an alternate timeline created by the Enigma scaring Agatha into a side alley, resulting in the loss of her locket. Kalaong 07:28, 7 September 2008 (UTC) :That is entirely possible. The Enigma could have opened a window from the past, or another dimension, or a distant place, in which case that would not be true. But if it did open a window from the future, it would be suitably ironic if the first result of the Enigma's attempts to tamper with time was to plant the seeds of her ultimate defeat. (Perhaps you can change history without the changes being separated from you in another timeline if you wouldn't be affected by the changes yet, at least in the GG universe.) --Quadibloc 23:13, 29 November 2008 (UTC) Douglas Hofstadter once pointed out that Mr. Dodgson, say, can be the author of Mr. Tortoise, who is the author of Mr. Cthulhu, who is actually the author of Mr. Dodgson; this is a perfectly acceptable situation in our reality, as long as Mr. Hofstadter, say, is the author of all three of them. There are a couple or so different ways to write time travel into a story (specifically, how you deal with the grandfather paradox). Because of my age, I usually take Back to the Future (part I) as a starting point. In that case things happen fairly willy-nilly; shooting your grandfather can blank you out; despite chaos theory things pretty much go along as one would expect, as long as one doesn't expect too much. (Twin Pines Mall becomes Lone Pine Mall because Marty ran over the other sapling pine, &c.) I suppose "pivotal events" are a common feature, as in the TV show Voyagers where the heroes had to make things go as history remembers it. As long as the historical details are correct, how it actually happened can apparently vary. No paradoxes are allowed to persist only because the hero actively prevents them. (I think Quantum Leap fits in here, too.) The usual cleanup of this kind of authorial freedom would be "alternate dimensions" or "timelines" as used in Star Trek and later Heinlein novels (his "senile period"). In this case it seems histories are not really destroyed, but they can be lost. There are no paradoxes, because the world that created the hero still exists; the one in which he shot his grandfather became a separate one as early as he entered it. Given the (unfalsifiable) "many worlds" interpretation of quantum physics, the "parallel dimensions" discipline has perhaps a surprisingly high degree of physical plausibility. Against these relatively loosely plotted approaches is the other main category (restricted action resolution) containing more tightly plotted stories, which are usually (of necessity) one-off rather than serials. Which doesn't necessarily make them "high brow": Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure falls into (or spoofs) this category. Heinlein's "—All You Zombies—", Harrison's The Technicolor Time Machine, and, I've recently discovered, Powers' The Anubis Gates (1983, one of the original "Steampunk" — per se — novels) contain a single time line. In these stories recorded history (fictional or otherwise) happens as a direct consequence of time travel paradoxes rather than despite them. Although I'm not at all sure Girl Genius will fall strictly into the second category (for reasons addressed (or to be addressed) in the article the "canon"), I expect that the tight plotting is in the general style of the story. ⚙Zarchne 22:42, 20 September 2008 (UTC) :I’m still hoping there won’t be time travel—too unscientific for my tastes. Ordinary 09:00, 1 December 2008 (UTC) ::Technically, opening windows to view the past isn't necessarily manipulating time. Do we have evidence of altering the continuum?LadyVivamus 20:26, 1 December 2008 (UTC) ::: Viewing the past isn't manipulating time, but letting the past view you is. When Agatha and Gil viewed Bang, Bang saw them. Bang told the Baron, and the Baron's response to Agatha was different because of that. Argadi 21:07, 1 December 2008 (UTC) ::::Not to mention that it could be used to send at least inanimate objects through time, since sound, and therefore air can pass though it! Kalaong 18:27, 6 January 2009 (UTC) :::::::::Sound doesn't necessarily imply air can pass through. All we know for certain is that energy (in the form of light and vibration) can, though this is certainly enough to break causality. Brianmce 11:03, 31 January 2009 (UTC) ::There already is time travel in the comic with Othar's sister. :: ::Evidence of alternating timeline: The Other, as Enigma opened a window through time, causing electric anomalies (implying that in that timeline, the Other, as Enigma would have gained a serious amount of power or taken Castle Heterodyne), that caused Agatha to lose her sigil and break through. Agatha, if ever, would have braken through at a much later age. In the current timeline, Agatha will invent time travel. If the Other is killed for good, then the grandfather paradox would apply. (the Other falls, Agatha retains her sigil, not breaks through, not kills the Other, therefore she invents time travel, Agatha will lose her sigil ... Causal loop complete.) 14:17, April 25, 2011 (UTC) :: ::This is an old, old debate in time travel stories: is the past changeable, or not? Either time loops are stable and interventions in the past cause the present, or else time travel connections can constantly interfere with the past. Since time travel is yet to be invented from the perspective of the present, all characters who have NOT time traveled or received information from a time traveler are unaware of which is true. :: ::We know that stable time loops CAN exist, because we've seen one: Bang and the two windows Agatha makes, which we see in Bang's first report to the Baron. Bang sees Gil "insult" her by addressing her as a maniac. (That's true, but it's unwise to say it to Bang's face.) She then is angered when another time window appears... and prepares to shoot, leading Gil to consider her a maniac and address her as such. This is a few seconds later from Gil's POV but two weeks earlier from Bang's. Thus, Bang is angry at Gil because she is going to aim her gun in two weeks... because she was angered by Gil two weeks ago. This is a stable time loop: the actions taken during the time-travel event produce a consistent reality from all perspectives. :: ::However, stable time loops can still occur in a universe where the past can be altered; they're just not mandatory in such a universe. Whether stable time loops are mandatory or not is highly important to understanding the history of the Geisterdamen and the nature of the Other (see theory page on the Other for details.) Catfishncod 20:36, June 6, 2011 (UTC)